Doctors from Gabrovo: One year since the first Covid-19 case was reported in Bulgaria

It has been one year since the first Covid-19 cases were registered in Bulgaria. At midnight on March 7-8, the news that one patient at a hospital in Pleven and one at a hospital in Gabrovo had tested positive for coronavirus worried the whole country and prompted authorities to make quick and coordinated decisions.

Doctors in Gabrovo say that in the first minutes after the news that "the first Covid-19 patient in Bulgaria was in their hospital", they experienced worries and a purely human fear for their own health and life.

"We worried, because we didn't know if we would be able to cope, we had to start working in a new way," said Albena Lukanova, a senior nurse in the infectious diseases ward at the hospital in Gabrovo.

"There was some tension, reorganization started ...," recalls Dr. Maya Raykova, head of the Infectious Diseases Department.

"We had to urgently convene the team, we had some preliminary, albeit poor preparation, we had to change the algorithms of work, to move patients," added Dr. Minko Mihov, director of "Dr. Tota Venkova" hospital.

Dr. Mihov says that in the first hours for him and his colleagues it was extremely important for the teams to maintain self-control and continue to work adequately.

Because we were the first, this gave us the opportunity to get the support from all the institutions. It was new for everyone at the time, it was not something we had encountered. Then they provided us with the relevant protective equipment, because that was the most important thing, how to protect the team and the colleagues", added Dr. Minko Mihov.

Doctors also say that our society is still divided, but people really change when they come face to face with the disease. And the director of the hospital says that for the past year he has not had to persuade his colleagues not to leave the hospital for fear of infection.